THE TRUTH

ABOUT LIES

Thematic Focus
- Power of story telling
- Truth and trust
Chris doesnt possess the
imaginative capacity to invent
worlds that dont exist he cant
invent a world where things
happen if they HAVENT
ACTUALLY HAPPENED!

Chris cannot lies because a lie is

when you say something
happened when it didnt happen.
The danger in talking about
something that didnt happen is
that it opens up the possibility of
discussing hundreds or thousands
of things that didnt happen - a lie has no boundaries!
This terrifies Christopher because
he needs boundaries to feel safe.

Chris logic allows for no exceptions or

nuances in social interactions he doesnt
perceive the need for subtlety in confronting
tricky social situations. He doesn't use
euphemisms and hE cant decipher any
shades of grey in lies that exist between the
black and white areas of truth.

Our own views on lies are challenged by Chris perceptions

our view of a lie depends on a mixture of content,
situation, motivation and relationship.

Chris even learns to navigate the subtle intricacies of truth

in conversation he develops a sense of lying through
omission.
A white lie is not a lie at all. It is where you tell the truth but
you do not tell all of the truth.

He manages to circumvent his promise to his father not to try

and detect Wellingtons killer by logically working through the
possible questions he may ask Mrs. Alexander. He is
determined to arrive at a level of truth that ranks higher on his
ethical scale than his promise to his father.

Chris loves the finite truths about mysterious events as

deciphered by Sherlock Holmes but he hates the phony
spiritualism of Conan Doyle the man who wrote Sherlock
Holmes.
In discussing Doyle's belief in fairies, Chris says
Sometimes people want to be stupid and they do not want
to know the truth.
Christophers belief in absolute truth
actually confronts our own perspectives
on truth. The reader asks themselves
Why do we lie? Our need to varnish
the truth with self-deceit is a way of
avoiding the painful facts of our own
existence. Chris father hides the truth
from Chris because its easier than
confronting his son with the realities of
the breakdown of his marriage. Chris
father is in fact, deceiving himself about
the nature of his marriages demise.

Chris feels safe when life is ordered and repetitive.

He devises his own set of rules and expectations.

Chris ultimate freedom lies in his dream where the world

has disappeared except
the people who dont look at other peoples facesall
special people.

Chris would feel safe here because he could do

what he liked without having explain or change in
order to accommodate the expectations of others.

Trust
A black and white concept for Chris
You either have it or you dont
He trusts only his parents and his teacher
He cannot trust anyone else as they are unpredictable and
they dont accommodate his rules of order.

Christophers father
Chris trusts his dad because he has no reason not to. But Chris dad breaks his trust
lies about mother and dog.
Chris dad wanted to minimise the trauma of Chris mothers disappearance as he
believes that Chris wont be able to understand the emotional/behavioural complexities
of their marriages disintegration.
He regrets the lies and the dog , but his explanations lie in the murky area between truth
and justification Chris doesnt understand he is not equipped to deal with shades of
grey and he becomes distraught.

At out of all the chaos of his dads betrayal, Chris

grabs on to fact his dad killed Wellington. His
dad is a murderer. Murderers kill people. His dad
will kill him.

Attempt a TEAL:

Christophers unique character is in part revealed through

his insistence on truth and order. How does Haddon convey
Christophers perspective regarding truth and trust?